Synthetic cannabinoids (SC) are laboratory-made drugs that act upon the CB1 cannabinoid receptor mimicking the effect of the psychoactive plant derived compound Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol. Since the first identification of SC in herbal products in 2009, new SC have proliferated as drug suppliers attempt to circumvent legislative restrictions relating to the production and use of known SC and to stay one step ahead of the forensic system by producing analogues with analytically uncharacterised chemical structures. Previously introduced SC include the naphthoylindoles, phenylacetylindoles, cyclopropanoylindoles and naphthoylpyrroles. Among the new wave of SC are indazole and indole 3-carboxamides with adamantyl and alkyl substituents on the N-carboxamide and 1-nitrogen atom of the heterocyclic ring, respectively (Grigoryev et al 2012 (This paper refers to AB001 and not AKB48); Uchiyama et al 2012; Amato et al 2014). Current identification of parent molecules and their metabolites is by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), analytical methods which require specialist staff for their operation. Immunoassays, dependent upon antibody-analyte binding, are a more practical and cheaper alternative. Competitive immunosassays are available for SC families such as naphthoylindoles and phenylacetylindoles (e.g. our EP2487155 A1) but not for the new wave of SC based on adamantyl-substituted indazole and indole 3-carboxamides.
AKB48 is N-(1-adamantyl)-1-pentyl-1H-indole-3-carboxamide.